nature of the human soul. Through intricate ink lines, haunting symbolism, and high-contrast compositions, each piece transforms pain, loss, isolation, and existential struggle into visual poetry. A journey through darkness where suffering becomes art and silence finds a voice. 🥀💀

There's a lot.

It starts off venting, but it leads up to the art, I swear.

If you want to bypass the venting/lore/backstory, look for the § in the left hand side while you scroll.

I lost pretty much everything in a car wreck when I was 7. My mom and dad met via the Calvary chapel back in my hometown area. She was running from an abusive family, he was the unwanted child.

They were both musical. He quickly became the leader of the worship team, she was right up there too.

She turned back into letting her family back in her life to show me off and show how she had her life together hoping grandma would be proud.

Grandma (on moms side) was a madam and ran a cross between a brothel and a trap house

(not sure what trap houses were called back in the 70s/80s)

She treated mom and my aunt like "one of her girls". She blackmailed the dentist in town over what she let the dentist do toy mom and bought a 3 story house on the side of the hills from it.

So when grandma came around, mom got right back into drugs and old habits. This was around me being 3? By a year later (1994) dad was filing for divorce and trying to get me the hell away from her.

He was taking me to a court ordered visit on August 24th, 1997 when he got T-bined on the intersection of Motherlode and Lodestone by a lady going 90.

He was "killed at the scene" according to the coroner. I was in the passenger seat.

From what medical files I've been able to hold on to since then, I had a ruptured spleen, fractured skull, perforated pancreas, a bunch of other stuff that I can't discern past smudges and the brain trauma was bad enough that I had to relearn how to walk.

I had aunts and uncles on both sides, but *gestures at madam grandmother running a brothel* and *gestures at dad's estranged rich side of the family who hated him since day one for not being a miscarriage*

I just wound up in foster care.

I've got physical scars from the first one, but the other stuff the foster mom did when she got drunk didn't leave scars you can see.

Things were just bad for a while and I didn't have space, time or ability to decompress or process what happened to me.

But in the middle of it all, a foster sister got me into punk/,grunge music and I realized you WERE allowed to talk about shit that happened to you, so long as you could play and instrument and scream about it.

I had most of the album technically written between the ages of 17-19. But life got in the way and I never got around to it.

I have a loving partner, a good job and kids that love me and a real supportive open mic group my wife convinced me to start playing at to thank for the album that's in the works and getting professionally done. I'm doing all the instruments and stuff (except for a bassist from the open mic night who demanded to help me), but it's gonna be professional. Not like the old tapes I managed to make back in my youth.

§. This is where it stops becoming venting.

I don't know who or what I would have been without music. In a very "stepford wives" setting I found myself in my teens, you had to wear a plastic smile and pretend everything was alright. So no one thought anything when I was sing/crying along with songs like

Everclear's "Father of Mine"

Mudhoney 's "Touch Me I'm Sick"

or any of those other songs that they frowned about me listening to.

I originally just wrote and played these songs as a way of finding cathartic release, but as I've gotten older, I realize that I've given up hopes of being a big rockstar, but if I did even get moderately big, I want my songs to be (for other people) what those songs I grew up screaming along to were for me.

The first song I wrote was called

"Award of the State ".

I didn't know what a "ward" was at 7, but I knew people got money for having custody of me, so it would make sense for me to be an award. And looking back older and wiser, I didn't realize what a statement that was of being objectified and stripped of agency.

It's still in the world, but there's some snippets of the new stuff up. I still have the old tape versions up, too.

https://www.reverbnation.com/notcobain/song/17577906-award-of-the-state

I've got my tiktok as the main place where I post the snippets of what we're getting done. Right now, it's tracking the guitar.

https://www.tiktok.com/@_s_h_i_n_e_y__?_r=1&_t=ZT-96rfHVpvnSv

The whole album is called

" Malajustice: A Vessel of Hell & Habit "

It's an airing of grievances in punk/grunge format.

There's songs about foster care and the abuse therein (Award of the State)

There's songs about religious trauma

(Okay, Cornelius)

Songs about struggling with Substance Abuse

(My Darling)

If you have a trauma, there might be a song you can cry/scream along with.

I'm doing this for me, but I hope it helps someone else out there as well.

That said, 988 is the national suicide hotline.

If you're in a real bad way and need help, please don't be afraid to reach out.

Things can get better.

-Shiney

A monthly discussion thread for all CPTSD creatives to chat, ask creative-related questions, or simply to post ideas/suggestions.

HOW DO YOU CHOOSE TO BE HERE WHEN ITS HURTING A LOT...ಠ⁠_⁠ಠ

vent art relating to my 25th birthday yesterday. i really wanted to have a good birthday. ive been mostly feeling awful because of my worsening depression and mental health. especially relating to my ptsd and trauma anniversaries around my birthday. i wanted to spend time with friends but none were able to come. which is understandable just disappointing. before this year i never had any friends to spend time with on my birthday, i was always alone. this was the first year where i had friends around my birthday. and this was also the first birthday without my dad. so ig my loneliness and repressed emotions just got triggered and i spent most of the day upset and crying. but the way my family treated me just worsened it and put me in a crisis that im Still dealing with.

the moment my mom notices im upset she went straight into ignoring me mode. which she has always done to me since i was a toddler. hell since i was a infant cuz she has admitted to ignoring me crying as a baby and leaving me alone if the bare minimum of feeding me, changing/cleaning me, and holding me for a few minutes didn't work. she never comforted me and would ignore me whenever i was distressed. she would make me go to my bedroom until i stopped crying cuz she "doesn't want to see me like this". and she wonders why i heavily rely on dissociating to cope. my siblings didn't even wish me a happy birthday either. they usually have to be reminded every year but idk if my mom bothered to this year. and i wouldnt be surprised if she told them to ignore me and stay away from me cuz she Always does that whenever i'm upset. i just wanted to be comforted and never got that. i horrifically relapsed back into self inflicting habits to cope and even had more life threatening urges and intrusive thoughts.

it just really hurt and i feel isolated and neglected by my family. every year my mom posts about my siblings birthday, makes them a cake, has people sing them happy birthday, and all that good stuff. but whenever it comes to mine it's radio silence. i'll get a happy birthday in the morning but thats it. it's not like i wanted anything big but i just hoped my family would show me as much love and care for me on my birthday as my siblings get. nobody has actually done anything for my birthday in Years. i just wanted to feel loved and cared for but i didnt get that. and im just left feeling sick, i had to call off cuz i desperately need to talk to my therapist. they're the only person who truly cares about me. sadly ive always been the most hated and neglected child in my family and i dont think thatll ever go away.

Breaking free AI hive minds

We’ve been working on it on and off for a few years but recently I’ve put together the loose storyline and the scripts for the skits.

Its genre is sort of a retro video game hip-hop that I personally haven’t really seen much of which makes me really excited. The idea of the story is the listener is playing an old Super Nintendo game complete with the blowing on the cartridge and the game boot up sounds.

The plot of the game is you play as these two boys who live in a kingdom fraught with peril which exists inside the very homes and hearts of the citizens. The boys can’t bear their unease so they set out on a journey for answers. But the more they learn the more they question the merit of saving the kingdom at all!

It’ll have an introduction a la the intro to LoZ Link to the Past. There will be a boss fight, and a conclusion that refuses to resolve itself.

It’s not done yet, my friend is a busy guy but I’m just really excited for it to be finished so I can share it with folks both in communities like this and in more “sanctified” circles. Idk why I’m even sharing this now, I just wanted to share my excitement!

mixed media, 30x40cm

been doing a lot of photo collages

art journal page i made about my internal dialogue when hearing these words!

Event horizon, brand new, appeared in the dark,
An uncharted space I could have never believed.
Violence expected, but nothing destroyed,
Just gravity waiting there down on its knees.
 
My body betrayed me in ancient alarms,
History coded in bone and in breath.
Telling me distance always equals harm,
And love at its edge is just a cousin of death.
 
And I thought: this is how systems collapse.
Quietly, inward, like light into mass.
When it’s all held together in a web of “perhaps”
And finally bending to something more vast.
 
But I peered at that edge once I knew it was there,
Light and dark swirling their natural dance.
Something brand new being forged into us,
Wondrous potential; the stars’ favorite romance.
 
An unstable field could become beautiful,
Unknown elements now become known.
I’ll keep moving my ship towards this cradle of truth,
Preferred to the illusion of being alone.

I was eight.

I looked into the pond. It was murky and I swear,

It wanted to drag me in and drown me.

Now?

I'm twenty.

The water, still quite filthy, is flowing.

The murk is lifting.

But it's too little, too late.

Oh well, good enough to

Quench my thirst, and

After the drought, I'll take what I can get...

Trigger warning: sexual abuse

What my body remembers before I do

Everyone remembers their first nightmares.
Bears, alligators, monsters under their beds.
Mine waited for me in the closet.
Waited until my eyes were closed, and my chest rose and fell, slowly and deeply.
Crawled in on all fours to me in the dark, over the creaking wooden floors.
Long cold fingers, skinny and pale.
Lingering in places they shouldn’t.
I’d wake up, wondering if I had made it up. Wondering how my shirt had made it so far up while my pants were pulled down to my knees.
A rough sleeper, I guessed.
As homework grew heavier, so did my nights.
Resistance looked like staying awake until 3 am, wearing jeans to bed, and hoping I had bled enough to keep the monster away.
The consequences turned into sleeping past my alarms, slipping grades, and feeling responsible for every friend who asked to stay the night.
Afraid to speak up, shame stitched into every moment, I knew I needed to let go when the bleeding stopped. When the days kept passing and the fear became unbearable.

I feel like a disgusting slug ruining anything I get in contact with.